The Desires World Tour
The Desires World Tour was the seventh concert tour by American singer Beyoncé in support of her sixth studio album, Desires. The all-stadium tour was announced following her guest appearance at the Super Bowl LIII halftime show. The tour started on November 9, 2019 at Mount Smart Stadium in Auckland, New Zealand and concluded on October 8, 2020 at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, California, comprising 87 dates. The Desires World Tour was extremely successful, receiving rave reviews and every show selling out. Development Following the release of Beyoncé's sixth studio album, Desires, In January 2019, Billboard reported that Knowles-Carter would be using Ticketmaster's Verified Fan program to prevent bots and ticket scalpers from purchasing tickets. The program, named "Bey Tix", allowed fans to purchase tickets in advance of the public on-sale by participating in boost activities to increase chances of getting a pre-sale access code. On February 3, 2019, immediately following Beyoncé's 15-minute halftime show performance at the Super Bowl LIII in Atlanta, a commercial announced the first round of dates for the tour jointly with Ticketmaster. Tickets went on sale to the general public on February 13, 2018. In late February, Knowles announced 20 shows in Europe. Due to overwhelming demand, additional dates were announced for Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and London. Furthermore, the singer also announced extra shows in North America for Houston, Chicago, East Rutherford, Pasadena, New York City, and Atlanta due to popular demand before the pre-sale began. On March 10, Knowles-Carter announced six dates for Oceania, six for Asia, and nine for South America. In April 2018, due to huge demand, Knowles went on to add second dates in Santa Clara, Landover, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, third dates in Atlanta and Houston, and a fourth date in New York City, totaling 44 shows for the tour's North American leg. On May 8, 2019, Knowles-Carter announced 2 shows in South Africa. Commercial performance Ticket Sales Following the announcement of the tour, Beyoncé's website temporarily crashed, as a result of the post-Super Bowl advertisement. After the first round of North American ticket pre-sales, many second dates in cities were announced, including a third show at New York City's Citi Field due to the high demand. During the first round of the European general sale, Beyoncé's show at Amsterdam Arena sold out within 30 minutes, prompting a waiting list to be opened and promoters attempting to organise a second show. Some Swedish fans were left unhappy due to the speed tickets sold out for the Friends Arena date of the tour, with complaints being made about the queueing system implemented by Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster apologised and stated "unfortunately, there were more who wanted tickets than what was available." The UK shows were met with huge commercial success, with all tickets being sold in under 20 minutes, including 90,000 tickets at London's Wembley Stadium. Many fans shared their displeasure online with not being able to secure tickets, and, as is usual with in-demand concert tours, many tickets found their way onto the secondary market place with a large markup on the original price. As a result of this, a second London show was added to the schedule, set for July 9, 2020. Shows